Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Insert Dramatic Finale Here (part 1 of 3)

Tyler examined the Sues and Stus currently occupying the basement. There weren't many of them-most of the longer-standing Sues and Stus were atoms on the wind now-but there still appeared to be a need for a basement monitor.

Tyler flashed the Sues and Stus an evil grin, and began speaking.

"At the moment, I have been assigned to stare at you all as if you were capable of escaping. The Prohibitors on your wrists have been specially modified to shock you should you cross the threshold of your cell."
This was a lie-the Prohibitors were completely normal-but it had the effect that Tyler wanted. A Stu edging toward his cell door yelped and jumped back. Tyler grinned.

"Also, I brought you some Mad-Libs."

He tossed a book and a pencil into the cell. The Sue whose cell they had landed in grabbed them and began reciting parts of speech.

"Noun."

"Chicken."

"No, orangutan!"

"No way! Grape!"

"How about noun?"

As the Sues and Stus argued, Tyler took the opportunity to read a book. He was halfway through when a loud alarm blared. This was normal, but the next announcement wasn't.

"All Agents into the conference room! This is not a drill!"

"You're right, it's a jackhammer."

"YOUR LIVER IS MINE!"

"GAH!"

"Is this thing still on?"

"Right in the middle of the book, too…" Tyler mumbled, running out of the basement to rejoin the world.

OO

"There's a massive amount of Sue energy in this fandom."

Marcus raised a hand. "Higher or lower than the Elementals?"

"Higher. It's probably at least level 8."

Ben raised a hand. "How about Chuck Norris?"

"DIEEEE!"

"Anyway, all of you are going in."

"Out of curiousity-,"

"Yes?"

"What fandom is this?"

"We're not sure. We're not even sure if it's an actual fandom or just a dimension. Either way, it's showing up on our monitors, and it's riddled with Suenergy. Let's go."

OO

Several minutes later, in the fandom, in a cave…

"It seems deserted," Tyler mumbled.

Drake swatted him.

"Don't say that! Any time someone says that, they're doomed!"

"That's just an old author's tale."

"No it's not! Haven't you ever noticed it happening?"

"…No."

"Ay…"

"Oi! You two! Stop potentially getting us killed!"

"Told you."

"Shut up."

SKREEEEEE!

"On the record, I blame you for this."

"Yeah, probably justified."

Something massive dropped from the roof of the cavern, plummeting toward the Society. As everyone scattered, the something skidded to a halt, kicking up a huge cloud of dust. Before anyone could do anything, dozens of tentacles whipped out of the cloud, slashing at the Society. Everyone quickly shifted into whatever combat mode they had. As the dust cloud cleared, something was revealed to be a gigantic bat/squid/jiggimathingy. It's tentacles ended in lethal hooks, and small, unpleasant-looking suckers dotted them.

OO

Jared dodged a tentacle-swipe.

"Chloe!"

"What?"

"Give me the syringe!"

"WHAT?"

"I need to test how they shoved together the DNA of a bat and a squid!"

"WHAT?"

"Just give me the syringe."

"…Here." Chloe tossed a large syringe at Jared.

Jared caught the syringe, and as the tentacle swiped again, he jabbed it with the syringe, extracting a cup of blood. As the syringe filled, the tentacle went pale, shriveled up, and turned to dust.

"Hah! Take that you stupid tentacle!" Jared held the syringe vial to his face.

"Huh. It seems the blood is actively attempting to separate…."

Jared pointed the syringe at the giant bat-squid.

"Eat your own blood, bat-squid-thing!"

The syringe exploded, and glass, a needle, and blood shot at the bat-squid at incredible speed, striking its wing. The bat-thing let out a bellow of agony, leaping into the air. Jared and Chloe darted to one side as the bulk of the bat-squid slammed down where they had been standing a moment ago.

The scream of pain echoed throughout the cavern, knocking the entire Society off its feet. The cavern shuddered with the force of the cry, and several rocks dropped to the sandy ground.

"That worked better than expected…"

"Don't mess with nukes!"

All heads turned toward Ben, who was pointing a single finger at the bat-squid. A loud whistling sound echoed through the cave.

"Skree?"

BOOOOOMMMM!

A mushroom cloud erupted around the bat-squid, engulfing it in nuclear flames. The bat-squid let out a loud, screeching cry as nuclear flames engulfed it (and the author let out a loud. screeching cry as his bill from the Department of Redundancy Department grew even higher), its tentacles shriveling and combusting. It took to the sky (the roof of the cave, anyway), slamming into the walls over and over again.

"My eyes…" Tyler mumbled. He had been staring at the bat-squid when the nuke had hit it, and the resulting flare, combined with the semidarkness of the cave, had left imprints on his eyeballs.

" My ears…" Jared mumbled. He had been standing near the bat-squid after its shriek.

"My nose…" Drake mumbled. He had been standing next to the bat-squid when the nuke hit, and the smell was awful.

OO

Meanwhile, on the PCMSPS ship…

"My finger!" A random Uber-Stu screamed. "I jammed my finger!"

The suddenness of the cry startled the nearby Relyt, and so…

"Mih thun! Ih bfith mih thun!"

OO

Far from this random assaultation of the senses…

Retsa was talking to shadows.

Well, not really, but for all the response the listener was giving, she might as well have been. In fact, she was speaking to a man dressed entirely in black. His face was obscured by the shadows that had been mentioned previously.

"Anyway -,"

The man's name was drowned out by a massive explosion.

"As I have said your name, I feel no need to repeat it. Anyway, the Society is attacking. You know what to do."

As Retsa left the room, she gave a deep sigh of relief. She didn't like talking to him. Especially she nobody ever saw his face. A few jokes had been made about his assumed appearance, but they rarely lasted, seeing as they weren't usually funny.

OO

Back in the creepy dude's room….

"So, the Society's on it's way here, huh? Ah well… I was getting tired of these games anyway…."

The man drew a Plothole Generator, generated a Plothole (and a bill), and stepped through it to parts unknown.

OO

Back in the cave…

The bat-squid slammed into the ground, finally dead. All the Society Agents watched in awe.

"That was awesome!"

"Ben, nuke it again and see what happens!"

"I liked the part with the moose!"

"What about the ferris wheel!"

"Eh, that was okay."

"Okay everybody, show's over, let's move!"

The Society moved. The bat-squid was in the way, so they moved again to go around it. Then they moved a third time, towards the end of the cave.

OO

"See, Retsa? I told you that the bat-squid was a bad idea!"

"Oh, shut up, Sirahc. It didn't cost us anything."

"Except 5 dozen Ubers to transport it!"

"Like I said: It didn't cost anything. Why are you complaining anyway? At least we got to watch the show when they nuked it."

"Eh… I suppose so…"

"Exactly. Besides, the bat-squid was only act I. Act II will come when they get to our ship. There we'll destroy them!"

"How do you know? I mean, they beat us last time."

"That was barely, and now that their strongest member's dead, they don't stand a chance against us! Especially not with our new weapon…."

"New weapon?"

"Yes. I had Deraj design it."

"Oh." Sirahc looked irritated. "Why him? I could have done it just as well."

"We need Deraj to be working constantly to keep him from dwelling on the loss of Sue Storm and potentially damaging the ship again."

"Oh."

"Soon, not only will we purify the multiverse, the Society will be out of our way as well!"

Retsa tapped a button on the side of the chair she was sitting in, and recorded evil laughter blared out of speakers that had been strategically placed around the ship, making sure that nobody would miss anything.

"Attention all PCMSPS members, Uber-Sues, Uber-Stus, and vermin that got into the ship despite our best efforts. Man your stations."

Around the ship, each and every PCMSPS member, Uber-Sue, Uber-Stu, and rat stopped whatever they were doing, tensing slightly.

"The Society is coming."

OO

"I still say the flying pinwheels were best!"

"They were okay, but the moose was better."

"You two in the back! Pipe down!"

"We're in a desert with no one around for miles! Who'll hear us?"

"Another bat-squid?"

"Unlikely."

THUMP!

"Am I jinxed today or something?"

"It's a possibili-,"

THUMPTHUMP!

"This can't be good."

THUMPITATHUMPITATHUMP!

"Do we ever catch a break?"

WHUMP!

"Oh."

SHWAKITASHWAKITA-

"SHUT UP WITH THE ONOMATOPOEIAS!"

Fine, fine. Anyway…

A spray of sand arced over a nearby dune.

"What? We just went through one fight scene!"

"The Suenergy level was 8 or higher, did you think one bat-squid was all?"

Cristoph raised a hand "Now that we know who was talking, does anyone know what those are?"

"What what are?"

"Those." Cristoph pointed behind Tash, who turned.

"Oh… those."

Dozens of beach-ball sized metal spheres were rolling down the side of the dune.

Tash blinked. "If I had to take a guess… I'd say they were probably robots that got around in the form of beach-ball sized metal spheres."

As each sphere reached the end of the dune, it unfolded into a robot. The robots stood about six feet high, with a single electric eye.

"Battle droids?"

"No, too dangerous-looking."

One of the robots charged forwards. "Rogerrogerrogerrogerroger…"

"Shut up!" Tyler hurled an energy blast into the robot's "Stomach." Said robot folded back into its beach ball form, and then exploded, forming a deep indent in the sand. Another of the beach ball forms rolled into the indent, launching itself into the air…

"Jurai-Ken… Rinwi!" Tash slammed into the beach ball feet first, sending it flying into a group of robot forms. The resulting explosion left a patch of glass in the sand, which slipped up another two beach ball forms, sending them plowing into sand dunes.

Several meters away, Kyle stabbed the Omniweapon, currently in the form of a katana, through a gap in a robot's armor, then jumped away as the robot exploded in a massive fireball. Bits of metal stuck into nearby robots, which also exploded, although less violently. Then he ducked as another robot, in beach-ball form, went flying over his head. He turned to see Drake rubbing the back of his head.

"Sorry!"

OOOOOOO

Up on the PCMSPS ship….

"Since when do we have robots?"

"I dunno, somebody must have built them."

"Yes, but-,"

"OUT!" Retsa charged into the room, brandishing her staff.

The two floating mouths squeaked in fear and vanished again.

"We've been infested by mouths again… ULRIC!"

The Uber-Stu came running up. "Yes?"

"Go find those mouths before they start breeding!"

"Okay." The Uber-Stu ran off.

OOOOOOOO

Back to the action…

"Die, bizarre-looking robot, die!"

"Robots can't die, Tyler."

Tyler finished swallowing the robot's head, then looked up at Drake.

"It all depends on how hard you hit them."

"No it doesn't. A robot isn't a living thing, and thus, you can't kill it."

"Whaaatever."

Drake blinked. "Oookay… I propose a competition."

Tyler was suddenly standing up. "Hm?"

"Most enemies smashed and/or vaporized."

"You're on."

OOOOOOOOO

The fight raged on….

OOOOOOOOOO

Chrys fired a blast of desu at a robot, short-circuiting it.

"This is weird… why would the PCMSPS make robots when they have the Ubers?"

Valerie fired energy arrows into a group of the robots, blasting them apart.

"Maybe there was spare Suenergy, and they used it?"

Pete fired a spray of energy bullets into the robots.

"Whatever it is, they aren't very well made…"

Ben nuked a swarm of robots.

"Really? I didn't notice."

Jared Boomhammered a robot, while Chloe stabbed through the "skull," of another.

"He's right," Chloe agreed. "When I stabbed one of them, it just sort of… fell apart."

"And Ben, how would you notice if you keep nuking them?" Jared asked.

Rhia slashed one in two.

"Well, a robot that was built to be radioactivity-proof might be able to survive a nuke."

Claire and Michael cut down robot after robot.

"It would take a lot of radioactivity-proof…ness to survive an actual nuke," Michael pointed out.

"It would probably blow the PCMSPS budget." Claire continued.

Harriet smashed a robot with her cricket bat.

"They could sell that green laser. That might account for it."

Miri wedged her staff under the head of a robot before popping it off.

"I don't think selling a green laser would pay for lead coatings…especially not forty-foot-thick lead coatings…"

Terrie hurled a knife into a robot, which promptly exploded.

"Or they could just have a teleport spell built in or something…it would be a lot cheaper."

Ezra shattered the legs of several robots.

"I don't think that would be practical. Robots would be appearing out of nowhere at inconvenient times."

Danielle sent the head of a robot flying with a sharp whack.

"Yeah, like on the dinner table or in the middle of the night."

Thought Marcus opened his umbrella in the face of a robot, sending it stumbling backwards…right onto the sword of Emotion Marcus.

"Th-they could have p-p-protected them from n-nukes w-with a shielding sp-spell."

"OR A REFRIGERATOR!"

Willie blasted a robot with the Bolero of Steam.

"Maybe they just made the robots really cheaply, so they don't have to worry if a few dozen get nuked."

Kyle swung the Omniweapon as a mace, crushing a robot to bits.

"They did. We're just wondering why."

Jess jabbed one with her needle, and it fell apart.

"Maybe they have other minions, like the bat-squid."

Tyler rolled the Wall of Defense down a hill, knocking over several robots.

"27… 28… 29… and they do. They have the Ubers."

Drake punched the head off a robot.

"34! They also have the green laser."

Karissa swung her chain whip, ripping a gash in a robot. The robot, being shoddily made, exploded.

"What's so important about a green laser?"

Joe ripped a robot apart.

"Maybe it's a particularly dangerous green laser?"

Cristoph hurled a shuriken into a robot. The robot sparked, went dead, and fell over.

Ossa sliced a robot in two, and it fell apart. Ossa was turning away to deal with another robot when something caught her eye. She sliced the second robot in two, then picked a a bit of its armor that had fallen off. It was corrugated.

"Hey, everybody! These robots are made of cardboard!"

Mizuho blasted a robot with magic, reducing it to rubble.

"Cardboard? Really?"

Dave swung his axe, beheading a robot.

"Well, it would explain why this fight is so boring."

Shirley lunged at Dave, who narrowly dodged her.

"Ugh! Even for you, that was bad."

Lily smashed a robot with her Ice Blow.

"Blame the author."

Alice sliced a robot to bits with her sword.

"Yes, let's do that".

Louise shot a robot.

"Or we could just ignore the whole thing."

Tom beat a robot to death with a shrubbery.

"Take that! And that! And that!"

Danielle stabbed a robot with her staff (somehow).

"3… 2… 1…"

The robot fell apart.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Twenty minutes later…

The last robot fell to the ground, its head who-knows-where.

Jared grinned. "Well, that was easy."

"Don't say things like that!" Chloe admonished. "Do you want to fight another few thousand robots?"

"Like your Negatizer Magnet was any better? It was supposed to make sure there were only our Elimination Society counterparts there! Instead, we get two of the leaders!"

"And you're saying your Sue Storm device went perfectly?"

"You little-,"

Deraj was about to lunge at Sirahc when a wall of rock separated them. Retsa stood up.

"Sirahc, there was nothing wrong with the Sue Storm device. And Deraj, Sirahc made the Space Hammer cards and the Prohibitor-removal technology. I keep you two around for different reasons, and as long as those reasons exist, neither of you are leaving this ship.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

"46! Beat that!" Tyler announced.

"52," Drake replied calmly.

"WHAT?"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Soon our Society counterparts will get here, and then they'll taste the power of our ultimate weapon!" Ekard proclaimed.

"Didn't we already have an ultimate weapon?" Relyt asked.

"What, the green laser? Please. That's old hat by now."

"Ah. And the multi-cannons?"

"Pebbles compared to our new weapon."

"The Razor-Lazor?"

"That never worked in the first place."

"True."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"So, if the first threat we encountered was the bat-squid…" Tash started.

"And then the robots…" Harriet continued.

"Crack logic dictates that the next threat will be the Ubers, and hence the PCMSPS Agents themselves!"

The Society let out a loud cheer.

"However, as it required about a mile of walking between the bat-squid and the robots, we think it will be about twice that to get to the PCMSPS!" Harriet yelled.

The Society let out a loud groan.

"Just kidding!" Tash confirmed.

The Society let out a loud sigh of relief.

This could have gone on all day, or at least until the author ran out of synonyms for "said," but it was interrupted by a massive shadow that enveloped all the Society members, and the humming that precedes spaceship landings in all good sci-fi movies. The Society scattered to avoid being crushed by the rapidly descending PCMSPS ship. However, instead of landing, the ship released dozens of Uber pods, quickly followed by the PCMSPS members parachuting down to join them.

"Well… that was a lot shorter than a mile," Harriet mumbled.

Retsa sliced off her parachute, then formed a fireball in her hand, pointing it at various Society Agents.

"Well well well. Society, we meet again."

"Quit ripping off old lines and let's get to the fight scene!"

Harriet frowned. "Okay, who said that?"

"They did," responded Karissa, pointing at the mouths, who had appeared out of nowhere.

For the first and last time in all of recorded history, a ACMSES member and a PCMSPS member worked together. Both Tash and Retsa launched a blast of fire at the mouths, incinerating them instantly.

Retsa smirked. "The first shots have been fired. Let the battle begin."